Cai ” CYPHER” Watson is set to miss the CS Asia Championships later this month as Nikita “jackasmo“ Skyba joins fnatic on loan for the remainder of the season.
CYPHER at Fragadelphia Blockville – Credit: @muenstergg & Fragadelpia
The brutal last-minute announcement comes right after CYPHER helped fnatic win Fragadelphia Blockville, which qualified them for the StarLadder Budapest Major. The way it worked out in the end with VRS meant that when it got to the top four in Philly, whoever won the event would be going to the Major. Despite a rough semi-final from the British rifler, CYPHER put on a strong showing in the final to secure fnatic their first and only Major of 2025.
CYPHER‘s future is open to interpretation, with the fnatic announcement being slightly ambiguous. With jackasmo only joining on loan, CYPHER is guaranteed to be missing the CS Asia Championships. The inference of jackasmo joining for the remainder of the season would make you think that jackasmo will also be playing the major, but this has not been explicitly confirmed.
CYPHER has been unfortunate with the way that orgs have operated throughout his career. Between Into The Breach and Bleed refusing to pay players, fnatic moving the entry fragger to the sidelines ahead of Budapest is another tough break. The one small silver lining of this is that with the rosters locked for the most prestigious tournament of the season, CYPHER will still be receiving stickers for his contributions to fnatic’s qualification.
fnatic stated that its reasoning for benching the EPIC.LAN 36 champion was based on jackasmo‘s performances at Fragadelphia, where the Ukrainian stood in for veteran Swede Freddy “Krimz” Johansson.
CYPHER: “When people say inconsistent, they mean stats. I bring a lot more to the team than stats”
CYPHER joined fnatic during the summer off-season from BC.Game. Speaking to UKCSGO in September, CYPHER mentioned that he was aware that BC.Game was looking to sign Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, but the prospect of joining the legacy British organisation of fnatic was too good an opportunity to pass up. Ultimately, CYPHER would end up being one of the two individuals departing BC.Game to make way for s1mple and Estonian rifler Andreas “aNdu” Maasing.
With CYPHER moving to the inactive roster, fnatic are:
Rodion “fear“ Smyk
Nikita “jackasmo“ Skyba
Freddy “KRIMZ“ Johansson
Dmytro “jambo“ Semera
Benjamin “blameF“ Bremer
Cai “CYPHER” Watson (Bench)
Ahead of our opening match at the CS Asia Championship against paiN Gaming next week, @jackASM0 joins the roster on loan until the end of the season, stepping in for @cyphercsgo_ for the duration of the tournament.
We were impressed by Nikita's impact during our winning run at… pic.twitter.com/b9WSsVnt3O
— FNATIC CS (@FNATICCS2) October 10, 2025
